Symbol and Soul: Ghost in the Machine
by Adagio Cantabile
Summary: Inspired by Under The Bridge, Batman reflects on his city. Spiritual exploration of Ryle's theory of the Ghost in the Machine. Rated for a bummed out ending.


A/N: My favourite song in the world is Under the Bridge: I find that early morning insomnia can be cured by sticking on my MP3 and letting go in the song - I once used an entire battery listening to it over and over. Coupled with the fact that my girlfriend used to play it all the time whenever I went round, this song has significance in my life that can't be equalled. I would like to share my thoughts on this and how I feel about Manchester, my home town, through the medium of Batman and Gotham.

Disclaimer: I don't own Batman and speak to the chilli's if you want under the bridge.

Enjoy.

* * *

3.30 am. Tonight was slow for crime – the Joker was not out of Arkham yet, so a calm could fall upon his city that had not been felt… well since before the mobs moved in.

No mobs, no master criminals, just some punks and a guy who needed taking to the hospital. Batman had obliged, not necessarily because he or the other fellow was a good man, but because his city demanded it.

Looking over the sprawling skyline, Batman figured that on nights like tonight, when the moon was full and a smattering of stars could be seen, the power and majesty of his own city was truly the most beautiful thing he could behold.

When humanity leaves a city, what would be left, some might think, would be steel and brick, the soul and life gone with the people. After five years of serving her, watching over her, Batman knew that the city was itself alive, an unknown ghost that, even when he had left for seven years, would beckon him back with the gentle whispers of a kind lover. Tonight, when only a handful of people were walking the streets on a bitterly cold February, a person could be forgiven for thinking that no one was there. Gotham suited it, her empty streets and sidewalks filled, not with the selfish, the cruel and undeserving, but the soul of the city, an entire monument rushing up to meet her protector.

Sometimes, when Batman was not necessary, he would change into normal clothes and leave his penthouse to meet his city. He would walk her streets alone, knowing that his dual role of protector and philanthropist kept the spirit of the city happy. He remembered how Gotham reacted to him the first time he was Batman. On the rooftop, surveying his territory, he felt an angry cry for help from the streets, calling for him. He answered, and after the incident with Scarecrow, once the Narrows had been decontaminated, he felt a distant but distinct gratefulness. The wind kissed him, the cold bit him and all the while he stood in content, forgetting his destroyed home and his worries, if only briefly.

He didn't feel the thanks for a while afterwards. Batman loved Gotham, Joker was indifferent. That was what kept them from becoming each other- Joker could never see the beauty in a near silent city at 3 in the morning, Batman could be overwhelmed by it. The Joker had no respect, no courtesy for Gotham and she hated him. Batman hated him. The Joker destroyed where Batman had built, ransacked where Batman respected. The Joker pushed the city to the brink of destruction with his endless games, nearly taking her soul with Harvey Dent. She had been healing so well – Batman remembered on the night Rachel died, he heard a city weep for her White Knight and her Dark Knight's heart, a prayer for an end to the madness that had all but consumed her. When he had caught The Joker, he returned to this spot after he said he had killed those people. He knew the city would survive when he felt her lift him to the place he had to be to live with his ruined reputation. The people thought one thing, the city knew another; The Joker was right, they had battled for the soul of Gotham that night and Batman had won.

The city was his as much as he was the city's. They belonged to each other, a symbol and city intertwined forever. Batman saved people to save Gotham, not the other way around. People were fickle, emotional wrecks who believed that simply because they lived somewhere they somehow owned it.

He wondered how many of the crime lords had stood on a roof top at 3 in the morning and were overwhelmed by the sheer force of life rushing through the world.

He owed the city his life, he was sure of it. Once, after a fight with a maniac and a knife, Batman had been stabbed in the back and kicked to the floor. Somehow, he disarmed the maniac and left the scene to the police, but three blocks east and he was in trouble. Swooping under the bridge that connected east to west, he was gasping, wheezing, choking for breath that never came. He had given up hope when a whisper kissed his ears: _Don't stop, Bruce, please don't stop. _He somehow stood and managed to make it to his car, the onboard computer driving him home to Alfred and medical attention. He would never admit to anyone that a city talked to him, but as he grew more and more as the Batman, he knew that as a soul, Gotham was real, a real entity that understood and knew him.

On his death bed, when he was old and tired and spent, the city spoke to him again.

_Thank you for believing in me Bruce – rest in peace._

He and his city became one, symbol and soul united at long, long last.


End file.
